Don’t forget! Microsoft security patches will be issued later today

Later today, Tuesday 14 January, Microsoft will be releasing its first bunch of scheduled security patches for 2014.

And the good news is that it’s – by normal standards – not too monstrous, making life that little bit less arduous for IT teams and system administrators around the world.

As a blog post by Microsoft’s Dustin Childs reveals, there will only be four security bulletins issued by Microsoft today, addressing vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Office and Dynamics AX.

And, in further good news, none of them have been rated as any higher than “important” by Microsoft rather than the more stressful classification of “critical”.

Amongst the fixes is one for a Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 exploit that allows an “evalation of privilege”. First reported in November 2013, the in-the-wild zero-day attack was seen being used in PDF-based attacks, utilising a vulnerability in unpatched versions of Adobe Reader.

As ever, it’s a reminder for all computer users to keep their software patched, and in particular for home users and companies still relying upon Windows XP to upgrade to a newer operating system as soon as possible – as support and security patches will cease in April.

As usual full details of the patches won’t be apparent until Microsoft releases its fixes later today, but we do know that all of the updates will require a reboot.

Furthermore, don’t think that your IT staff are going to have it entirely their own way because Microsoft is issuing less security patches than normal.

Today’s Patch Tuesday from Microsoft coincides with security updates from both Adobe and Oracle (the makers of Java).